While most survivors of the Great East Japan Earthquake put on brave and stoic faces for the rest of the world, in reality, many children and adults suffered deep psychological damage from losing loved ones and their homes.
While most survivors of the Great East Japan Earthquake put on brave and stoic faces for the rest of the world, in reality, many children and adults suffered deep psychological damage from losing loved ones and their homes.
Hidefumi Kotani, director of an institute who heads a special support team from a Tokyo university, said those who lost family or friends or had their home swept away need to talk to someone, rather than shouldering the whole burden alone.
In a counseling session in May in a disaster-stricken area by Kotani's support team from the Institute for Advanced Studies for Clinical Psychology at International Christian University in Tokyo's Mitaka, a 16-year-old female high student said she often dreams of tsunami.
"Many students made it to the roof of the school building, but one student after another fell off. ・
The student was at school when the earthquake struck on March 11. She evacuated to the rooftop of her school building, from where she saw the ensuing tsunami submerge the second floor and wash away cars.
The student spoke in a staccato fashion, as Yuki Nakamura, a researcher at the institute, listened attentively.
"One moment I was prepared to die," she said.
The students who were at school when the earthquake struck were safe, but two of her senior students, who had returned home, died.
"It is not a bad thing that you can have a dream," Nakamura said to the student. "I hope you will come to have good dreams."
The student's face brightened somewhat. "I feel better after talking," she said.
The institute conducts surveys and research with a clinical psychology approach, and after the earthquake, it started providing free telephone counseling to the public.
Nakamura and other members of the support team visited disaster-stricken areas in early May and mid-June.
However, children often needed the assistance of adults, including parents and teachers to ease their emotional burden.
Kotani said there are cases where children must shoulder the burden for adults, such as when adults were faced with problems due to the quake and cannot afford to support their children.
Researchers at the institute also believe that parents, teachers and clinical psychologists--people who are in a position of taking care of children--deserve attention themselves.
The team members attended as lecturers a workshop for teachers and clinical psychologists held in Sendai in May.
Participants were divided into groups of five or six and started talking about their burdens.
"I saw hundreds of bodies at morgues when I was looking for my missing younger brother," said Mikio Hirano, a 39-year-old associate university professor and certified clinical development psychologist. "I sometimes burst into tears. I am worried if I am going mad."
At the session, participants were asked to explain the pictures they were asked to draw. Almost all drew images related to the earthquake.
One participant drew a picture of the sun in the hopes that, "I want to feel relaxed under the sun without thinking anything," while another drew a deep-rooted tree, saying it is his hope "to become a person who is down to earth and firmly grounded."
A basic rule for reducing survivors burdens is not to force people to talk, a team member said.
Participants did not pressure others to speak when they did not want to tell their story. Instead, they created an atmosphere in which speakers can tell what they want to tell.
Hirano said he felt relieved near the end of the session, adding, "It would be difficult to support others without being healthy oneself."
The workshop was organized by Care Miyagi, which was set up after the March 11 earthquake by the prefectural arm of the Japan school counselors' association and the prefecture's clinical psychologists association.
Its activities are based on a concept that "teachers should be supported in order to restore school functions, a foundation to support the community," a Care Miyagi official said.
After the workshop, the workshop participants created a program for teachers and have been conducting similar sessions in the prefecture.
Kotani also attended a workshop in Kesennuma in the same prefecture in June.
He called for support for teachers by third-party members to avoid a small number of teachers carrying too much of the burden.
"It would be too much to deal with the problem by local specialists alone," he said, promising to continue the support effort.